Sunday, January 19, 2014

As the nation observes Martin Luther King day this year, many people wish to subvert and co-opt his messages to advance their own agendas. Some religious fanatics, and fundamentalists point with glee to the fact that King was a highly religious man. But as this article demonstrates, King was not a religious fanatics, or a fundamentalist bible-beater, or a social conservative like they are. MLK noted that, "my college training, especially the first two years, brought many doubts into my mind. It was at this period that the shackles of fundamentalism were removed from my body." He likewise goes on to say, "This is why, when I came to Crozer, I could accept the liberal interpretation with relative ease." Yet you will find people insisting that King was a religious fanatic. Instead, King underscored how a person could be a religious "fan", without being a "fanatic". It's kind of like the difference between someone who is a sports fan, versus someone who feels compelled to riot in the streets their his or her favorite team loses. King may have marched in the streets, but he did not riot. He left that to the fanatics who were often arrayed against him.

A federal judge has struck down North Carolina's recent extremist anti-abortion laws which had required medically unnecssary ultrasounds and the reading of religious propaganda . Religious fanatics in the state has sought to legislate their religious views by mandating that women wishing to get abortions view ultrasound images of the fetus against their will, while having a doctor, against his or her will, read an ideological statement prepared by the legislature. The federal court rightly felt that compelling healthcare practitioners to read anti-abortion propaganda messages, as well as forcing women to view images and listen to the messages violated Constitutional rights. North Carolina joins Oklahoma in having its latest anti-abortion legislative gimmicks struck down. Not that such laws would have accomplished anything anyway. They were simply more random obstructionism intended to inconvenience their political opponents, and increase the cost of obtaining this legal procedure. Since they lack the ability to outlaw abortion they are instead attempting to curtail it with red tape, and cumbersome bureaucracy of the type that right-wingers usually swear on a stack of Bibles that they will never support. But don't expect these people to have any consistency, or to even tell the truth in the first place. Their cognitive dissonance is truly a marvel to behold.